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Australian writer Beverley Farmer died on 16 April. She and I had been friends, albeit usually long-distance ones, for more than 30 years. It seems to me now that we had so much in common that friendship was almost inevitable: it was just a matter of timing that first meeting.

As the West flirts with starting World War III in Syria, it is worth examining some of the financial and business dynamics behind the US 'military industrial complex'. War may not be good business, but it is big business. And in contrast to Russia and China, the industry in the US is heavily privatised, including the use of mercenaries.

Mohandas was a lawyer and a saviour, who took his beatin's and refused to eat; Mahatma won, the Union Jack was flaggin’, then one of his own dropped Gandhi at his feet. Jesus was a rabbi and a dreamer, who talked and stirred and gave up carpentry; Mary cried as spearpoint slid past femur, godson egressed into mystery.

In a recent article I remarked that in the Catholic Church clericalism is a pejorative term. Some readers criticised me for focusing on individuals and not the more insidious culture of clericalism. The criticism was justified, and in this article I shall reflect on the culture and its byproducts.

When Cynthia Nixon announced she was running for governor of New York the excitement was instantaneous. Not because she was a woman, as there have been no female governors of the state, nor because she once played Miranda on Sex and the City, but because she spoke in a way that captured leftie hearts the world over.

This Easter, and Orthodox Easter, and Passover, and at the changing of the seasons, I am prepared to reassert my faith. That whatever evil brings, compassion, courage and passionate commitment to the old values of honesty, accountability and care for others will bring the enormous change that was promised so long ago.

The idea of cheating at sport, of setting such a bad example to the young, was quite simply unthinkable then, but now this cricketing episode, I fear, is a disgrace from which Australian sport may never recover. Something ethical, almost spiritual, has gone, and I am left with an acute sense of loss.

Kane insists God doesn't make mistakes: 'That's what makes him God.' Lena retorts with reference to the Hayflick limit — the naturally occurring limit on the number of times cells can divide. Never mind cancer; the very fact of ageing, she says, comes down to a flaw in our DNA. It's a telling scene, pointing to a scientifically enlightened humanity at odds with its own physiology.

The rush to pay tribute to the cosmological colossus had an air of reflex about it. People paid respects, but many were not entirely sure why. He'd be missed, but in what way? Such is the way of celebrity, even those rare intellectual ones who burst the barrier of mass marketing. They become symbols in their time, ciphers of an age.

Yiayia Aphrodite always practised frugality. She cut old dresses into strips and wove cotton rugs out of them, and used matches twice if she could. When plastic bags came into supermarkets, she immediately made use of them: I think every house in the neighbourhood received presents of circular blue and orange bathmats and doormats.

A man took his own life Saturday, shooting himself outside the White House. The scene was cleared, the victim identified, and everyone moved on. In America, a 26-year-old firing multiple rounds into himself right outside the presidential residence is not an A1 story. It may not spark conversation or policy change - but it should.